As Dean mentioned, the ring cadence between CO and system cycles can be dramatically different. CO line ring cycles are about six seconds, where system ones are closer to three. Basically, the station rings twice for every "ring" that the caller hears. Add one of the system's timers to this and yes, it's quite easy for the caller to hear a few rings prior to answer.

There are two ring delay timer settings that are involved here. First, there's the system-wide ring DETECT timer in flash 01 that Bill mentioned. This single-digit entry between 2 and 9 determines the delay time that lines ring before the system starts to PROCESS the incoming call. This setting should be set to around 6 in order to capture CID data. This range, 2-9, represents 200 to 900 ms of time, NOT the actual ring count. The default is 3, which is for use without caller ID.

It is also helpful to set this delay even without caller ID, since it will keep the system from trying to process a call on a line that has telco CO line forwarding activated. With telco call forwarding enabled on a line, a half-ring burst is still sent as a reminder. By setting this timer properly, the system will not only wait to capture CID data, but it will also ignore these reminder rings.

The second CO ring delay timer under flash 40, page C, is the delay in which the actual ringing sound of the call begins AFTER the system has processed the call. Normally, this setting would be 0, since you want the calls to ring immediately once presented to the station. This setting is limited to a maximum of 20 seconds, and as stated earlier, an entry of zero results in no delay.

Aside from that, any other delays must be coming from some other setting. One scenario that I encountered was where a line was set to ring at a virtual station that was then no-answer forwarded to the receptionist. This was at a radio station where the line was also parallel-connected to the studio phone system. They wanted calls ringing in at the receptionist delayed as long as possible, so using the combination of CO line ring delay PLUS station preset forwarding, they accomplished it. They got almost two minutes of delay that way. Pretty ingenious, I might add.

Station preset call forwarding (flash 50, page C) offers more flexibility in time delay conditions (internal/external, etc.), and up to 99 seconds of delay time. I know it's a stretch, but is it possible that this might be what's happening in your situation?

Ed Vaughn, MBSWWYPBX